Some thoughts on St Anthony and relics.
Category: Saints
St. John’s Obedient Bedbugs
Like several of the apocryphal books of the Bible, the Acts of John likely preserves some historical core around which legendary (and eventually some heretical) material accrued as it wended its way through time and place. In The Fate of the Apostles, Sean McDowell argues convincingly that, in spite of their obvious ahistorical material, apocrypha like…
Michael Ludwig and the Demon
In the Église des Jésuites of Molsheim in Northern France there was curious relic described as late as the 17th century. Within the soaring grandeur of the Gothic cathedral is found the Baroque chapel of St. Ignatius of Loyola, which housed among other items two scraps of paper written in Greek. The story behind them…
The Top of St. Thomas Becket’s Skull
The martyrdom of St. Thomas Becket has a been a popular subject for artists from the middle ages to the 20th century, but one detail of the murder stands out in a few depictions. These show the top of the saints skull being shorn off by the first blow, like so: And: And: Medieval art…
The Pierced Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Is the Blessed Mother a martyr? St. Bernard of Clairvaux thought so. Building on the prophesy of Simeon that a sword would pierce her heart, he preached that “only by passing through your heart could the sword enter the flesh of your Son…. Thus the violence of sorrow has cut through your heart, and we rightly…
